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CONCORD, N. H. 

JFRIKTED £T HILL AND M0OR£> 
1821. 



*- 









THE restless citizens of a Republic too of- 
ten " lash the ocean to waft a feather." But 
the late address of the Secretary of State is 
an object of no trifling magnitude : and 
though frou! some qsiarters the fiercest fury 
of wind and wfjve luis beaten upon it, we trust, 
that its principles are " founded on a rock," 
and will prove imperishable. 

The author himself, too, one of our ripest 
icholars, an experienced statesman, and the 
.citizen of sterliiig private worth, on whom, 
tlie eyes of America are turned as the candi- 
date for her highest honours : this man 
must expect to becoiie a frequent mark for 
the shafts of envy and faction. Far be it 
from us to pretend, that either he or his ora- 
tion are invulnerable. But we do aver, wheth- 
er tliese strietuns be found in the dull or-i'f 
giesof ^fi/le's Gazelle^ and the Cassiuscroak-| 
ings of the Eichmond Enquii'er, or in oracu*' 
lar reviews from the "Emporium of Lit- 
erature," that their manner is generally in- 
judicious and the matter of some of them 
Esjost derogatory to the true interests of our 
country, 01* candid and temperate criticism 



we surely feel no disposition to complain. 
Its influence is salutary. But Mliy is not 
tlie f^raceless task of covering ^vith sneers, 
sarcasm and coarse calumny our own litera- 
ture and government, left to the professional 
libellers of England? Admit tliat the ad- 
dress of Mr. Adams is not altogether a fault- 
less production ; yet why should this cir- 
cumstance be reiterated as an heinous offence, 
when every thing human is obnoxious to a 
similar charge ? 

The address is not a folio volume, nor the 
yevised copy of a dissertation after the cor- 
rections of twenty years ; but it i§ the fugi- 
tive and almost extemporaneous effusion of 
the moment. Is the genuine test of its mer- 
its; then, the feebleness of a period, the mis- 
use of an expletive, the transposition of an 
lidverb ? Let us rather ask, whatever may 
be its imperfections, who is there among the 
disciples of that republicanism, which broke 
our colonial chains, that has not felt his heart 
burn at the perusal of it ? And if this hath 
been its operation, if it hath kindled in us a 
more ardent glow of patriotism, and roused 
\ that fearlessness and proud scorn of British 
■ oppression, which redeemed our fathers, what 
^ore ought we to expect I Would to Godj 



that, on our national annHersary, we might 
oftener meet with prwductions breathing like 
this an inspiring energy from the consecra- 
ted principl'-s of our revolution. The histo- 
ry of free States is full of warning upon their 
de,areneracy : hut it is not, that they are of- 
ten betrayed or forcibly enslaved. On the 
contrary, they are prone to slumber over 
small encroachmencs — to forget the original 
and saving spirit of their institutions : and 
whether, in the end, they sink the victims of 
foreign domination, or dwindle into " hewers 
of wood" to some domestic usurper, their 
fall is in general irrecoverable and base. It 
is only when the noblest sons of a Republic 
are willing to sound the tocsin and recal her 
backsliding race to elementary principles ; 
when some Codrus offers to close the fatal 
breach, or some Cato dares to disturb their 
effeminate dreams, that hope " waves her 
goldeu hair" over fond perspectives of the 
future. 

But so general mi answer to the grave 
charges against the address may be constru- 
ed into an implication of their truth. We 
shall, therefore, proceed to a more specific 
examination of them. They relate to the 
incorrectness of its political principles — its 



improper temper — faulty style — injustice to 
English literature, and inappropriate char- 
aeter, when viewed in connection with the 
rank of the author. 

Every friend of our independence ought to 
have anticipated, that an address in its praise 
would incur the censure of critics, who, in 
making the censure, are forced to admit, that 
they " seem to write a defence of England 
and of English politics." Can it be doubted, 
that such a defence was attempted, when 
they stigmatize the address as mere "stuff," 
yilify its principles as stale, and deny to the 
declaration which Mr. Adams read any ex- 
cellence of sentiment not pirated by our fa- 
thers from the institutions of England ? But, 
if the institutions of England rest on the 
same theory with ours— why did Mercer and 
Montgomery bleed to establish independence? 
and why are we not now cursed with a Kingj 
a Peerage, a National Church anil an omnip- 
otent Parliament ? On the contrary, if the 
fountain of power be here different — the del- 
egation of it different — its checks different — 
its administration as different as the poles 
are distant; then why is the importance of the 
Declaration of Independence belittled ; and 
why are railing accusations brouglit against 



the address for its eulogy of the Declaration? 
As an iihistrjition of the^e remarks, Mr* 
Adams is distinctly charged with iguorsnce 
or falsehood ; because he avers that this im- 
mortal State Paper, was the " first solemn 
declaration of a nation of the only legitimate 
foundation of civil government." 

To prove the insolent charjj;e of ignorance 
or falsehood, the reviewer adds, that " tSie 
grand principle" in the Declaration was long 
before discovered. Does the address deny 
that ? It only says, that tills principle was 
then for the first time solemvly declared by 
" a nation.''^ ISot that there had been in for- 
mer ages no Drutuses, nor Hampdens, nor 
Sidneys, nor Loekes. 

Again the reviewer adds, that this princi- 
ple had previously been applied in some in- 
stances in England and elsewhere. The ad- 
dress, so far from gainsaying this, only ob- 
serves, that it had not before been solemnly 
i^eclared by a nation, "as the only legitimate 
foundation of civil government." The very 
extracts, introduced by the reviewer from 
Burke, show, that the English nation, often 
as the agony of oppression has driven them 
into rebellion, have never considered this 



principle as the " otilj legitimate founda= 
tion" of her government. 

The merest tyro in her laws, too, cannot 
be ignorant, that in both theory and practice 
her people are not the fountain of either pow- 
er or honour : that her Parliament is omnip- 
otent, and, so far from being checked by the 
judiciary or the elective franchise, can sub- 
ject, and at times have subjected both to the 
tenure of her will : that the Represent itive 
principle applies only to a portion of Parlia- 
ment, and even that portion is not elected on 
any equal ratio of numbers or property : 
that however elected, it is also subject to be 
defeated in every measure by a Peerage^ 
who hold their seats in perfect contempt of 
both the people and of any Representative prin- 
ciple : and that even this Peerage as well as 
the House of Commons are powerless before 
a King, who rests his throne on conquest and 
inheritance. 

It is false, too, that he has ever been dis- 
placed by the People. Even Parliament 
have never attempted to introduce a succes- 
sion, not founded on legitimate descent from 
Danish pirates or Norman robbers. Indeed 
the principles of legitimacy are branded on 
every page of her history, and her people 



■'/■ 



have scarce a charter or a ri'^lit which has 
hot heen wrested by the s worth But it is the 
tenure hj which her popahitioii hold their 
rights, which constitutes the great distinCf 
tion and wliich elevates the humblest Ameri- 
can to greatness and degrades the proudest 
Briton into a slave. 

When goslin reviewers, therefore, sneer 
it " such stuff as this address is made of," 
they forget that Mr. Adams was not bred iii 
the court of Sardauapalus, but in the primi- 
tive puritan shades of a joung Republic 5 
that to hi m who was rocked in the cradle of 
the revolution, both vice and slavery are 
monsters of " hideous mien.'' and that the 
courage as well as liberty to denounce them 
were his birth-rigiit. Nor is it any re^ 
proach on such a man to be libelled in a 
place, where for twenty years the author of 
the Declaration of Independence was astaiid- 
ing theme of newspaper ribaldry, and where., 
during the same period, British reviewers, 
spies, clerks and stage actors have been wel- 
comed to the domestic hearth with prodigal 
hospitality^ 

If, in this " era of good feelings," hopes 
have been indulged, that our own countryj 
ter statesmea and institutioas would escape 



10 

further obloquy, we feci regret, that whenev- 
er England happens to become the object 
of just rebuke, those hopes shoukl fade. 
But we will not part with them altogether. 
A few noisy demagogues are not always the 
oracles of a large population. We trust 
there is still a redeeming spirit of republi- 
canism and national feeling hovering Hear 
the mounds of Bunker's Hill. 

- Another specific and " great objection" to 
the addressis said to be "the temper which 
it discovers towards England." This " tem- 
per," I suppose, consists principally in the 
truth and soberness of its account of the 
causes of our separation from her. If Eng- 
land and her kings in that account appear 
oppressive, Mr. Adams, forsooth, has discov- 
ered an ill " temper." With a few among us, 
England is, indeed, "the bulwark of our re- 
ligion, and her monarch "the defender of the 
Faith" How, then, can their immoralities 
be exposed without sacrilege and the worst 
of" temper?" But Mr. Adams has " out- 
hcroded Herod," On the very anniversary 
of our separation from England, when about 
to read the Declaration of Independence, 
which is filled with a catalogue of her ag- 
gressions and of her monarch's political sinSj 



11 

the orator himself lias travelled out of the 
reeord and had the bad '' temper" to allude 
to both of them. He has actually hinted at 
"frailties" in George III. when our fa- 
thers, in the public document then in his 
liand, only pronounced him " a prince, whose 
character is marked by every act which may 
define a tyrant." Though history, even 
English history, in the courage and integri- 
ty of truth, has "damned to everlasting fame'* 
its own king John, as a tyrant — its own Hen- 
ry lY. as an usur])er — its Bichard III. a 
murderer — its Henry VI 1 1, a bhie beard, and 
its Charles li. both infidel and voluptuary : 
yet an American, who owes neither allegi- 
ance nor veneration to any of the kingly tribe, 
must not presume to breathe aloud the 
slightest reflection upon that cne of them, 
whose oppressions scourged our fathers into a 
revolution. Indeed it is often reiterated that 
Mr. Adams ought to have been totally silent 
concerning George III. What 1 when the 
orator read and corumcnted on the Declara- 
tion of Independence— more than three 
fifths of which is devoted to a specific cata- 
logue of wrongs expressly imputed to George 
III. — was it, in truth, his duty to make 
no allusion to him ? Was his tongue to be- 



j:or4e p*4sitid and mute ? or rather would 
he not have been justified in exhibiting the 
f temper" and in echoing the avowal of 
Jafferson and Franklin, that the hiistorj 
of that prince was '^ a history of repeated in- 
juries and usurpations, all having in direct 
object the estublisliment of an absolute ty- 
ranny over these States ?" 

We really fear, from the tone of our pres- 
ent unfledged race of politicians, that the Dec- 
laration of Independence is becoming- a for- 
gotten slate piiper ; and, in admiration of 
" the rnler of the waves," that the princi- 
ples of that Declaration and the patriots of 
that a^^e are about to be consigned to obliv- 
ion, 

A part of the ill " temper" of Mr. Adams 
is also said to be evinced in the manner of 
his allusions. It wants sycophancy, and var- 
nish,and Chesterfifildianism, and Castlereagh- 
ism: as if, in speaking of a man, publicly 
denounced by our sires for " a tyrant," one 
of their sons was bound to apologize for their, 
simple honesty and to sweeten his own opin- 
ions with civet, 

I must confess my ov,'n astonishmeni at 
the gentleness of Mr. Adams, imbued as his 



13 

laind is and ought to be with our revolution- 
arj wrongsand the spirit of our present insti- 
tutions. The private cluiracter of George 
III. and his personal cahuniiies are one 
tiling, liis official and political sins are an- 
other, and deinisnd the deep execration of 
Aniericans in everj age. They were the 
deeds of a public masL Their operation ex- 
tended over two contineiits. Their example 
is the public property of orators, as well as 
of historians and statesmen. Future ^ene 
rations, who cannot escape their influence 
are to be reminded of their origin. And we 
are yet to learn, that either good taste, deco- 
rum, or national comitj require such a "tem- 
per" in Americans as consists in sealing 
their lips over the crimes, and in blazoning 
only the virtues of those public men, who 
have been their inveterate enemies. 

It is foul miirepresentation to allege, also, 
that Mr. Adams "undertakes to pronounce 
on what in any particular case will be the 
judgments at the bar of divine mercy." He 
merely hazards a conjecture, that the per- 
sonal sufferings of the last days of the British 
King " may^^ have atoned for former politic- 
al errors. What is there in this, which in» 
dicates a " temper^" presumptuous, irreve- 



' 14 

rent or harsh ? The departed spirits of our 
fathers might justly rehuke us from the 
skies, if, ou the day when their colonial 
chains were burst — chains imposed by Eng- 
land and ri vetted to the bone by George 
III. we had become so degenerate a? to blush 
at an allusion to the " frailties" of their " ty- 
rant." And yet the loyal reviewer shudders 
at such " absolute rudeness," and perfumes 
his pages with incense to England, as the 
'^greatest" " nation on earth." 

The third charge against the address re- 
lates merely to its style of composition. One 
illustration is called " a school-boy figure ;" 
another, ''forced and unnatural ;" and, in- 
deed, a page or two is said to be written 
" in extremely bad taste." Yet none of 
these arrogant assertions are supported by 
reference to particular rules of criticism or 
grammar, which Mr. Adams has been so 
wicked as to violate. It would have been most 
unwise in the orator to have supposed, that 
on a great national jubilee, when every heart 
aroundhim throbbed with exultation, he alone 
was bound to be didl, and dry, and frozen. 

The charge of " obscurity" in the last sen= 
tence of the address has some plausibility. 
i5ut this arises from the length of the se% 



15 

teiice and from inattention to ^yhat precedes 
it. The reviewer is sadly puzzled to discov- 
er who directs os to " go," and " like" whom 
we are to act. Yet, to use his own elegant 
languaj^'G, " every one may guess out for him- 
self" that it is the spirit, which dictated the 
Declaration of Independence^ that exhorts us 
to "go" and to act "like" those, to whom the 
Declaration was dictated. " Go," says that 
spirit, and cherish their devotion toiibcrtj" — > 
their sleepless vigilance — their abhorrence of 
British oppression — tlieir integrity to their 
own altars and homes- 

The reviewer, in fine, has made the nota- 
ble discovery, that the wJjole address is un- 
distinguished " from the ordinary crowd of 
performances on tlie same occasion." And 
jet its importance is such as to elicit front 
him twenty or thirty pages of criticism, and 
some of its topics are " well selected," and 
indeed " the general plan" of the v/hole ora- 
tion, " very happy." He has made this no- 
table discovery of its mediocrity, too, after 
the address had been reprinted and read 
and admired from Maine to Florida. We 
can " guess oii^," likewise, that such sheer 
impudence has seldom bccu found in a 
puny pamphleteer as to preHico this dis- 



46 

covery witli a remark, that he was intited to 
insert it in the JSTorth American ; bvit that his 
eagerness to pKick earlier laurels from the 
public prevented a compliance with the re- 
quest. If that Journal, with the unfortunate 
Athenian fickleness of the peojile among* 
ivhom it is printed, had changed, in three 
brief months, its grave censures on England 
and her politicians into abuse of Ameriea. 
and had proceeded to reprobate the strictures 
before ma^ie as " dirty 1\'ork," and avowed a 
readiness to perform penance for the "contro° 
Yersy,'' we must confessj that our mortifica- 
tion at such an apostacy would have been ex- 
treme. Not that Englishmen enough by 
birth and a few by principle have ever beeri 
wanting in our northern metropolis tobecome 
^^ the champions of Britannia," and " the 
chivalrous knights of chartered liberties and 
the rotten borough;" and to shout with the re- 
viewer, that by England "the whole civilized 
world has been saved from the sternest des- 
potism whichever oppressed it " As if to 
be saved from a single despot, for the pur- 
pose of wearing the chains of an " Holy Alli- 
ance" of despots, demanded as loud Iwsannas 
as the salvation by the Cross. But that na- 
tive Americans— who have meditated oa our 



17 

history — ^stiidied the principles of our ^gov- 
ernment — admired the virtues of our imme- 
diate fathers, and felt, in their own persons, 
'' the scofts which patient merit of the un- 
worthy takes" — would become such miscre- 
ant wretches as to lick the hand which smites 
them, is not to ho credited. With all intel- 
ligent politicians, the question is not whether 
England be more of a p*aradise than \meri- 
ca for kings, nobles and priests ; but wheth- 
er the great mass of her population partici- 
pate in such rights and comforts — whether 
the form of her government and the condi- 
tion of her morals be so pre-eminent as to jus- 
tify the unsparing abuse, which her travel- 
lers, orators and authors constantly heap up- 
on us. 

Another accusation against Mr. Adams, is, 
that he decries "the rich and noble literature 
of England." But it is to be remembered, 
that every tiling, which he utters on this 
point, is in answer to a taunting interroga- 
tory in the Edinburgh Review as to what 
America has done " for the benefit of man- 
kind :" and that his remarks are directed, 
not to her comparative progress in belles-let- 
tres, but chiefly to what Americans ha" e at- 

chieved in t!iose sciences and arts, which 

3 



confer direct iis^fvilness on the great mass of 
society. In his animated survey of this sub*' 
ject, if seme retaliatory " sneers" escape 
from him, the fraudulent reviewer knows, it 
is not at the " rich and noble literature of 
England;" but at the restless attempts of her 
scholars to aggrandize abstruse and specula* 
tive researches, in their " benefit to man- 
kind," over the exertions, which distinguish 
America for the amelioration of the lower 
orders of society — for her improvements in 
government, her inventions in mechanics. 
If a sentence or two flames with retorted 
"bitterness," it is not towards Bacon or 
Locke ; but against the purblind politicians, 
who can discern no " benefit to mankind" ia 
reducing to practice what others have only 
suggested. If his "manner be reproachful," 
the reviewer knows it is not at " Miss Edge- 
worth and the author of Waverley," but at 
the myriads of " fustian romances," with 
which England has deluged and enervated 
the rising generation, and which are urged 
by her as a "benefit to mankind" in competi- 
tion with what has here been atchieved in the 
education and comforts of the poor — in the 
rights of conscience — the security of proper, 
ly— and the universal enjoyment of ecjual lib- 



19 

erty. Not at the moral verse of Shakspeare. 
Miltoa and Cowper, but at the " spavvners of 
lascivious 1^ ricks ;" one of whom once en- 
joyed the hospitalities of this country, and 
evinced his gratitude by the defamation of 
Washington. Such " spawners of lascivious 
lyricks'' as scatter imitations of Anacreon, 
Catullus and Ovid over the shelves of the 
young, to taint their lips with gilded impurity 
and to distil into their hearts the unholy es- 
sence of all that is mawkish in sentiment or 
infidel in belief. If such authors are thought 
by the reviewer to confer most '^ benefit on 
mankind ;'' or even '* the inventors of Con- 
gi'eve rockets and Shrapnel shells," or th^ 
pilferers of Grecian statuary — be it so : and 
let the rest of the world decide whether ours, 
in the language of this patriotic critic, be "the 
base Carthagenian greatness such as after 
times will never point to but by way of deris- 
ion and warning." 

Why is it another theme of complaint, that 
these remarks fell from the lips of Mr. Ad- 
ams, and not of some obscure individual ? In 
a free government it can hardly be expected 
that the tongue or the press will never sound 
discordant to the ears of monarchs. But this 
dandy reviewer may cherish "the sweet 



20 

hope," that even our national anniversary 
will cease to he celebrated, because it brings 
unsavoury subjects between " the wind and 
his nobility." While the celebration contin- 
ues, however, if our orators must talk of Eng- 
land, her kings and oppressions, or be silent 
concerning what produced Independence 
and what fills the Declaration which accom- 
panied it; who are better qualified to dis- 
cuss such themes than the first men of the 
republic ? They did not hesitate at Athens, 
twice to appoint Pericles, to deliver public 
orations. The phillippics of Demosthenes, 
too, would probably be pronounced by the 
reviewer, like the address of Mr. Adams, in- 
appropriate and " unnecessary." It would be 
easy also to call them mere " tirades^' against 
the prince and country, that conspired to over- 
throw the liberties of Greece. Hancock and 
"Warren, on the 5th of March, were called to 
address their fellow citizens in commemora- 
tion of British wrongs. And is their mem- 
ory to be blackened by degenerate syco- 
phants, because they obeyed the call, and 
applied to the English, who were attempting 
to enslave America, the epithets of " bloody 
butchers," " unfeeling ruffians" ? The ashes 
of Patrick Henry, too, may be disturbed with 



^ 



Si 

anotlier cry of "treason," because lie declared 
that "Csesar had his Brutus, Charles I. his 
Cromwell, and George III. — may profit by 
their example." 

It is vain to hope, that this celebration or 
its principles will prove perpetual, unless 
our minds are recalled to the causes of it : 
and none are more competent to this duty 
than men like Mr. Adams, whose standing 
in society, whose eloquence and patriotism 
are calculated to shed over those causes the 
deathless light of truth. M hen Mr. Rush 
was a member of the cabinet, he delivered, 
an oration on the same occasion, without giv- 
ing rise to any strictures on its propriety. 
The Marquis of Londonderry, to be sure, 
might not condescend to comply with so ple- 
beian a request as to address an audience of 
mere people ! But God forbid, that the men 
who fill our oflices, should think themselves 
more than men ; — and should even a Presi- 
dent of the United States disdain to consult 
the feelings of the people at large — disregard 
their opinions— separate from their interests, 
and assume a contemptuous hauteur towards 
his political creators, — he will soon see the 
hnnd upon the wall which writes his doom. 
But tliough this paragon of a Marquis might 



%9 

0Ot submit to appear before such audiences 
^s were addressed by Pericles, Hancock and 
Adams ; yet the parliamentary debates of 
" the greatest nation on earth" are defiled 
with innumerable instances of vulgar abuse 
on America, from the titled mob both spirit- 
ual and temporal. Those periodical publi- 
cations, too, which are the mirror of public 
taste, even as recently as the last numbers 
from England, have the effrontery to allege, 
that the Americans are "contemptible in open 
warfare, and void of discipline and courage 
to withstand the bayonet." Tliis, it is to be 
remembered, falls from them after the ex- 
perience of the battle of Bridgewater and 
the sortie from Fort Brie. They then add, 
to the indignation we trust of every civilized 
heart, not British, that the '^ brown Indian" 
is the ouly "suitable force to contend with 
them." Yes, "the brown Indian"-— to toma- 
hawk infants and females on our frontier, and, 
as at the River Raisin, to butcher prisoners, 
while unarmed, and confiding in British 
faith ! 

We have one recommendation to give to 
those young patricians in " the Emporium of 
Literature," who are pointing their Lillipu- 
tian needles at Mr. Adams. Let them be 



S3 

jIfeTsuaded to peruse the orations ther© 
delivered to commemorate the British mas- 
sacre of the 5th of March — let them medi*. 
tate on the temper, stjle and sentiments of 
the public documents of our revolution — let 
the Declaration of Independence become a 
textbook: — and then, if Mr. Adams and his 
address still continue subjects " of mortificat- 
tioR,'' they must also blush at the mentioa 
of their fathers ; and the blood of those, wh© 
declared it "immortality to die for one's 
country" in a war with England-^will m 
vain cry to them from the ground " to seoroi 
to be slaves." 

The writer of these hasty remarks is no 
apologist of Mr. Adams. But he is the feai'*- 
less advocate of truth, eloquence and patriot- 
ism. I have not the honour of even a person- 
al acquaintance with him. But I am an 
American, and I venerate the statesman, 
whose hands, '' in these piping times" of syc- 
ophancy are pure from British predilections 
and British politics. I have neither smiles 
to ask nor adulation to bestow. The rising 
and the setting sun are alike to me. — But 
I am a Republican — and from my soul 
do loathe the citizen of a republican govern- 
ment, who heaps abuse on its advocates, who 



24 

sneers at our revoiationary principles, who 
invokes sympathy and admiration for those 
that starved our fathers in prison ships and 
murdered our motliers with the scalping 
knife of the "brown Indian." 1 rejoice no 
less than others at the prospect of " an era of 
good feelings." But 1 will never forget, un- 
der the penalty that my God may forget me, 
that these states are not now British prov- 
inces and that " a wall of partition," high as 
Heaven, exists between the foundations of 
our government and that of England ; and 
that the curse of a traitor should light on 
him, who attempts to cover this distinction 
from the people and to drag them into indif- 
ference concerning its importance. 

It is true, that only the Hellespont rolled 
between free Greece and corrupting Asia ; 
while an Atlantick spreads between us and 
Europe. But the same pestilence, which 
crossed to the destruction of her republics in 
the luxuries of commerce, the contagion of 
manners and the enervating influence of 
some of the arts, may in the same modes, aid- 
ed by the wings of the press, cross even a 
wider space to our perdition. Home talked 
much of Cincinn^jtus. But in every county 
and in almost every village we have citizens, 



25 

who serve tite state, and are found at the 
plough. The humble occupations of our 
statesmen are themes of reproach with Eng- 
lish travellers and journals. But we thank 
God, that so much of the patriarchal simpli- 
city, frugality and industry of our ancestors 
yet lives. Arid the execrations of all good 
men ought to blast the wretch, who strives 
to assimilate us in eit!K>r manners, morals or 
politics to one of the most corrupt monar- 
chies in Christendom. Wesayone of the most 
corrupt ; and if our remark be questioned, 

we need appeal to no witnesses beyond 

her present immaculate King and Queen ! 
But we would be guilty of neither injustice 
nor uncharitableness even to England. Her 
population yet retain some virtues. She has 
numerous proud recollections. Her charac- 
ter for bravery, enterprize and literary talent 
has covered her with imperishable glory: 
and long, very long has she averted, by the 
aid of these, the catastrophe, which awaits her 
insatiable spirit of aggrandizement, her fi- 
nancial embarrassments and hei* cruel op- 
pressions in both hemispheres. What, too, 
if the sun never sets upon her territory .? 
What if a hundred millions of human beings 
yield obeisance to her flag! Yet she was once 

our step-mother. Her King was our ",ty- 
4) 



36 

rant"— She has since stretched her giant mm 
across the ocean again to crush us-— she still 
wages an inveterate war against our '- good 
name." And it is vain to hope, that legiti 
macj will ever cf^ase to shm^^er, and, if pos 
sible, put down the only surviving example 
of what she stales •' successful rebellion.'^ 

We are aware, that the attacks on Mr. Ad^ 
ams's address rnaj have been sharpened hy 
I causes which do not meet the ear. Me has 
I splendid qualifications to fill the highest of- 
fice in the Union, if some Cataline or his 
incendiaries, in the strife for supremacy, are 
already scattering firebrands and poison, it 
behoves evevy well wisher to the republic to 
awake. It is one of Mr. Adams's pecuSiar ex- 
cellencies that while he is second to notie in 
talents and experience, he makes neither per- 
sonal influence nor exertion for what should 
always be the free gift of a free people. The 
discussion is premature. The election and 
its various bearings too distant. But in the 
mean time, if the character of Mr. Adams is 
destined to be mangled and even crucified to 
gratify British sycophants or the sinister 
views of demagogues, whose path to ofiice 
is obstructed by his virtues; let the tempest 
rage— 

'^ An honest man is still an unmoved rock, 
Washed whiter, but not shaken by the shoefc" 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 






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